“Americans are so anxious right now about their security, about what’s going on around the world”, said Ryan, a Republican.
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The elder Katko said they were walking downstairs in the Capitol when he noticed Secret Service agents were still in the building and Obama was likely close by.
Businessman Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner, said he was just plain bored. “And because we did – because we saw opportunity where others saw only peril – we emerged stronger and better than before”, the excerpts said. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith. Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk who went to jail rather than issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples after the Supreme Court ruling this summer, will be a guest in the chamber along with one of the lawyers who championed her case. And she unloaded on the man who’s leading the polls in her state’s crucial Republican presidential primary.
“The future we want”, he insisted, “is within our reach”. “No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country”.
He also teased members of both parties campaigning to replace him, some of them in the audience and some still on the campaign trail in Iowa and other states that start voting for new nominees in a few weeks. Cruz has called for a massive bombing campaign in Iraq and Syria to wipe out Islamic State forces.
Obama said: “The world will look to us to help solve these problems, and our answer needs to be more than tough talk or calls to carpet bomb civilians. That may work as a TV sound bite, but it doesn t pass muster on the world stage”. She used her speech to warn against the allure of the “siren call of the angriest voices”.
“I see it in the American who served his time, and dreams of starting over – and the business owner who gives him that second chance. They stopped. (His son) shook his hand and the President of the United States said, “Thank you for your service” to my son”, Katko said.
“If anybody still wants to dispute the science around climate change, have at it”, he said. That’s a marked decline from just two months earlier, and an even steeper fall compared to the first year of Obama’s presidency, when less than half said in July 2009 that the US was heading down the wrong path. Rejected the idea that IS threatens “our national existence”.
“Today, I met with law enforcement officials from San Bernardino, and I can tell you what they need: actions, not words, to secure our country”, said Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. “We as Republicans need to own that truth”. “But what I am suggesting is he does have an opportunity to learn from his experience and from my perspective his mistakes and I’ve mentioned a couple of areas where we could work together”.
While Tuesday’s speech was light on the lists of proposals typical in such addresses, Obama had some, even confronting a Congress largely hostile to his agenda.
Beyond lamenting the woes of the country, Trump also dedicated some of his 38-minute speech to hitting his political foes: notably Texas Sen.
The last segment featured Obama at his most eloquent and forceful.
But he didn’t react to Obama’s policy talk – almost all of which was at odds with Ryan’s priorities.
Obama also urges Americans not “echo the lie” that Islamic State is representative of Islam, but to recognize Islamic State terrorists for “what they are – killers and fanatics who have to be rooted out, hunted down, and destroyed”.
That’s the America I know.
‘When politicians insult Muslims, whether overseas or our fellow citizens, ‘ he added, ‘when a mosque is vandalised, or a kid bullied, that doesn’t make us safer. “There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office”, he said.
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He offered a prescription, saying it’s about the process, not the people who are elected.
